Psyker Landshark

Augmented Machine Mobile Armor: A Gundam and Armored Core-inspired Mecha RP

Banshee

The rest of the squad were...a mixed bag, at best. Only one other pilot that bothered with any sort of comms etiquette. Probably former military, like her. The rest obviously weren't. At least everyone managed to neatly fit themselves into team compositions, though the one piece of obvious new meat had Ariela rolling her eyes. Fucking figures they'd get saddled with some wet-behind-the-ears greenhorn that couldn't even work the comlink correctly. To say nothing of her callsign. God damned mercs.

VALKYRIE proved herself as indispensible as ever in providing information that everyone already knew, only just now forwarding a squad setup that mirrored exactly what they had chosen already. Great. Real cutting-edge piece of tech. Still, one thing crossed her mind in which the fucking AI could actually contribute for once.

"VALKYRIE, request. Make yourself useful and set up two sub-channels in the comm-net and place our squads one in each. Less hassle if we can keep channels clearer during combat." With that said, she didn't bother waiting for an affirmative, instead finishing final preparations to deploy.

Main system online.
All systems nominal.
Activating combat mode.

The order to launch came.

"Pilot Banshee, AUG LINEBREAKER. Deploying." A slight grin crossed Ariela's face as the catapult rocketed her off, following after Redknight's MORDRED. Her armor crashed into their landing zone, and it rose, rifles already primed and raised as Banshee checked their surroundings. No immediate contacts yet. Good.

"Landing zone clear!" She cried over the full team's comms, already checking the current topographical data and communications sensors. "Everyone ready to die? If the opfor's not sleeping on the job, they'll notice us soon enough. Let's form up and move, no slacking!"

Iris Ascendis

I probably won't post twice this round, but assume Iraleth takes the hand she's offered.

Iris Ascendis

Iraleth Kyrios

In her exhausted, heavily wounded state, Iraleth barely noticed the bullet fly past her. The result of its impact, however, was far more evident. Darkness fully engulfing the auditorium. Bronsteel trapped, panicking soundlessly. In its place, the sound of mannequins shattering. For a moment, a thought pierced through the haze of Iraleth's weary mind: was this Umbralism? Had she made a mistake working with this shadow witch?

Her father had brought up the differences between simple use of darkness Essence and full on Umbral abominations. Despite everything that was happening around her, Iraleth felt no sensation of utter malice. No wrongness that had accompanied the cultists who burned down the orphanage. She would let it slide for the moment, then. Whatever was happening, it was so obvious that if this was an Umbralist, whoever was overseeing procedures here had to have noticed by now and taken action accordingly. And Iraleth doubted the High Bishop had selected the incompetent to shepherd his dream.

Something shattered, and Iraleth heard Bronsteel's screams and pleads once more. Evidently, he'd fallen from the auditorium stage somehow. Good. She hadn't yet worked out how she was going to have made it up there anyway. What elven blood flowed through Iraleth's veins afforded her limited sight in the darkness, and she could barely make out the outline of the privileged brat flailing about. It would be amusing, if she had any capacity to feel something that wasn't related to achieving her goal. One foot in front of the other.

Iraleth flipped her sword around to hold it by the hilt in a reverse grip, and closed the last bit of distance. One of Gulliver's punches actually landed against her face, but it was so pathetic that any potential pain didn't even register with her. Her right hand slammed the pommel of her sword into Bronsteel's gut, causing him to double over. Her left snapped out in a sharp hook to his jaw. Even in her wretched state, she still had enough presence of mind to pull the punch, such that he was only knocked unconscious instead of killed by a plated fist. It might have been her addled mind simply playing tricks on her, but Iraleth could swear she saw a tooth fly loose. Or perhaps not.

Regardless, she stared down at Bronsteel's unconscious form for a long moment, her limbs still twitching occasionally. A glance around the rest of the auditorium. Their battle had destroyed a significant amount of seats. She couldn't help but wince. If the faculty held the seating clause to be literal, Bronsteel might just get what he wanted in terms of limiting the amount of students. Iraleth didn't bother trying to vocalize any of this. She doubted she had the energy right this moment. Instead, she slumped up against the stage and practically collapsed into a sitting position, her sword planted into the floor next to her. Just a brief rest. She could afford that now that the threat was taken care of. There was still time before the deadline, right?

Iris Ascendis

Gonna shit up a post in a bit

Augmented Machine Mobile Armor: A Gundam and Armored Core-inspired Mecha RP

Banshee

Even after all these years, freedom still tasted like smoke and ash. Tar in her mouth. In other words, absolute garbage.

Ariela sighed, exhaling a cloud of vapor within LINEBREAKER's cockpit as she took her e-cig out of her mouth. Fuck, but she really needed to get her hands on a flavor of vape juice that wasn't tobacco. Supply lines on Bifrost were such shit. Problems for later. For now, they were about to combat drop.

She quickly went over the briefing in her head again. Corp on corp violence, with the only specific caveat outside of wanton destruction being retrieving whatever they were working on here. Suited her just fine. Of course, it'd be nice if they had anything besides a goddamn AI as mission control, but considering EINHERJAR was just sticking a bunch of mercs that had never spoken to each other before together, it was the safe option. Ariela still would've liked to be able to mute that fucking AI, though.

Some other excitable young girl that wasn't the robot brain seemed just as exuberant, and Ariela resisted the urge to mute incoming comms once again. Merc life was such a pain in the ass, sometimes. Meet random pilots who you might never speak to again, instead of forming actual units that knew how to work together? God, she missed the old days. Fucking chickenshit politicians and bureaucrats just had to ruin a good thing, didn't they?

"This is Banshee, reading you five by five. LINEBREAKER's prepped and ready to launch." Ariela flicked her comms on while going over preflight checks one last time. Everything across the board was still green. Ready to go.

"Squad, query: we figure out who's going on what team yet, or is the AI handling that one? Much as I'd like to bust some heads, my AUG's better suited for a fast hit and run on their comms." She tucked her e-cig into her flight suit's pocket, awaiting an answer. At the very least, she'd be able to feel out the rest of the squad as best she could before shit hit the fan.

@VitaVitaAR

Iris Ascendis

Iraleth Kyrios

For a moment, Iraleth could only feel satisfaction at the Bronsteel boy's utter panic as she ripped his duplicate out of the Foreteller's chest. Both of them crashed onto the ground, Iraleth landing in a crouch. And then the exhaustion came. In an instant, the Inheritor's armor faded away, leaving only a glowering half-elf gasping for breath, still carrying a sword. And then the lightning came.

"GRAAAAAAAAAUUUUUGH!" Iraleth howled, collapsing to the ground and twitching as lightning coursed through her. The blast only clipped her side for an instant, but it felt like hours as she writhed in pain. Several seconds passed, and she grit her teeth, even as electricity continued to course through her nerves. This wouldn't be what laid her low. Not if she had anything to say about it.

Even without the aid of her Ethos, Iraleth slowly pushed herself up to her feet, planting her sword into the floor as a crutch. Through the entire aftershock of the lightning blast, she hadn't let go of her one lifeline. She would not lose her sword. She would not bend. She would not break. Through ragged breaths and twitching limbs, Iraleth rose, glaring daggers at Gulliver up on the stage. The paladin planted one foot in front of her other, residual sparks still dancing across her plate armor. By any sane metric, the distance between herself and the stage wasn't so great. For someone who'd just been hit by a full strength blast of lightning? It was agony. But she would endure.

Iraleth never broke her gaze with Gulliver as she continued to stagger towards the stage, sword in one hand and her fist clenched in the other. Even if it was the last thing she did today, she was going to punch him in the face.

Iris Ascendis

If the wording didn't make it clear, her Ethos is gonna crap out next round.

Iris Ascendis

Iraleth Kyrios

The construct wasn't invincible after all. Quite the opposite, actually. Still, it seemed aiming for the head did little good. Best to work downwards, then. If there wasn't some sort of power source in the chest, she'd just have to keep smashing its limbs.

"The only worm I see here is you!" She shouted back, alternating between defending with her shield and evading strikes altogether as the slowed giant tried to hit her, to no avail. Sweat dripped down her brow as the full power of her Ethos continued to tax her. She wouldn't be able to keep this up for much longer-

"Upon closer inspection, the Foreteller has its summoner, Gulliver Bronstel, inside the center of its being. Reasons are unknown. Suggestion, destroy the center of the Foreteller and attack the summoner that rests in its 'core.'"

“Knock knock.”

Well. That clarified some things. Something pounded at her skull for a single moment, but disappeared not long after. Someone else's Ethos or magic, most likely. Not important if they didn't persist. Still, it was good to know her suspicion was vindicated. Going for the chest was the best move, then. She still didn't want to unduly kill Bronsteel, but at this point, it wasn't clear whether the one within the golem or the one on the stage was real. Best to hold back and simply rip him from the titan rather than cave its chest in entirely.

The girl with the shadows was still a lingering concern, but she'd shown off enough of her abilitites that whatever authorities were watching this travesty were likely fully aware of her. If she was an Umbralist, they would have known by now. That, and she did just redirect the lightning intended for Iraleth towards herself. The paladin afforded her a brief nod of respect once before taking to the air again.

One last burst of strength was all she had left before Iraleth no longer had the strength to keep her Ethos manifested. Time to make it count.

"BRONSTEEL!" She bellowed, hoping to take his attention off of the boy who had so helpfully revealed a weakness. "Stop hiding behind your father's name and face me, you mongrel!" Once more, Iraleth charged. This time, she feinted a shift to the left before juking right, trying to bait out a retailatory attack in the wrong direction before dispelling her shield as she closed into melee. This time, she would gouge out an opening with her sword before reaching in and outright ripping Bronsteel out with her own two hands.

The Envenomed

Salvator Rasch

He already knew things wouldn't go quite so smoothly against a power armor trooper, but that didn't make the entire situation any less annoying. At least their help finally found their balls. And it didn't even take having to fully incapcitate the biggest threat on the field first. Points to them for that, he supposed.

Salvator hunkered down behind cover to evade the return fire he was subjected to, occasionally popping back up to take shots at targets of opportunity. Eventually, his magazine of EMP rounds was used up and the veteran voidhanger quickly loaded in AP-EX before swapping to his heavy shotgun. At this rate, they'd need to put the bastard down as quickly as possible. EMP had done its job in putting him off balance, but he'd need better firepower to finish the job. A wave of his hand over the shotgun's tube coated every loaded slug with ethereal jacketing.

"Acknowledged!" Salvator cried in response to the insurgents on their shared tac-net before he scanned over the battlefield once, planning his vector of attack. "You heard them, squad, light that power armor up. Shifting to flank, watch your fire!"

He focused his power, and leapt through the void once more, blinking to a closer position on the power armor trooper's flank. Salvator rose above his newly chosen cover, aimed down the sights, and started firing ethereal-jacketed heavy slug after ethereal-jacketed heavy slug at the human. Pump. Shoot. Pump. Shoot. Pump. Shoot.

Iris Ascendis

I got another post to do first this weekend so I probably won't get to this until tomorrow unless literally everyone else has posted before the end of tonight lmao